Millimeter-wave radars for human sensing and high resolution

Abstract

Millimeter-wave radar is one of the most promising sensor enabling to see an object which cannot be sensed by a human. Future radar sensor is developed as a human-oriented sensor improving one’s convenience and safety. One other key feature of the future radar is high resolution capability to resolve multiple targets. In this dissertation, various human sensing techniques using millimeter-wave radar are studied, including human localization, vital sign detection, and vocal signal detection. To this end, a signal sensitivity enhancement method and body motion cancellation techniques are proposed and demonstrated. For the high resolution radar, a phased subarray multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) radar is presented, which exploits a hybrid of RF beamforming and digital beamforming. Grating lobe cancellation techniques in the phased subarray MIMO radar are proposed to have a larger array aperture with the same radar hardware.